Gina Miller, the philanthropist who was the first to raise concerns about the
charity sector, says the Paul Flowers affair demonstrates how 'amateurish'
the Charitiy Commission is.

Paul Flowers has proved an embarrassment not just to Ed Miliband and the Co-operative movement, but also to the charities which were happy to have him on their boards.

Gina Miller, the philanthropist who is campaigning for standards to be raised in the sector, tells Mandrake it is “disgraceful” that the Charity Commission allowed Flowers to serve as a trustee of the Terrence Higgins Trust and chairman of the Manchester Camerata orchestra nine years after it had been made aware of how he had been suspended from the Lifeline Project, an addictions charity, over allegations he submitted £150,000 of false expense claims.

"I have been saying for years that many charities are ripe for exploitation due to lack of professionalism and waivering from asking hard questions, and this proves it," she says. "The people who have donated so generously to these organisations must be appalled. Our charities have to become more professional if they are not to remain sitting ducks for men like Flowers, and, for that matter, Jimmy Savile, who clearly involved themselves in them for what they could get out of them, and not what they could put in.

"The salaries of charity executives, the proportion of money that is actually given to good causes as opposed to the bureaucracy of the organisations and, most important of all, the whole way that their people are recruited and vetted, all now need to be looked at as a matter of urgency.

"We have every right to expect people who manage our charities - who sit on their boards and act as their trustees - to set examples and their recruitment should be conducted, with all the professionalism and vigour we have come to expect in the private sector. The reputation of the country's charities is at stake, and, for the sake of the increasing numbers of people who depend upon them, and who give to them so generously, it is time for Government to compel them to get a grip. The Charity Commission has repeatedly shown itself to be ineffective and amateurish. "

“No one charity can own an issue, a disease or an illness. The crowding out of small dynamic gritty community charities by big brand charities with their slick marketing and celebrity or political ambassadors will hurt us all. Donors need to become smarter givers and charities need a more business minded approach to charity finance, administrative structures which should prompt much needed collaboration, rationalisation and increased professionalism that is desperately needed to unlock the potential of our at risk youth and those slipping ever deeper into poverty and despair.”